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27 July 2014

What eBay Hath Wrought 97: Danica Patrick Metal of Honor

I picked this card up after it showed up on my eBay saved searches list with a fairly reasonable opening bid. It's a 2011 Press Pass Stealth Metal of Honor card featuring Danica Patrick. It contains a little swatch of race-used sheet metal and is numbered # 35 / 50.

Based on about 5 minutes of research, it looks like the Stealth brand ran from 2004 to 2011, and carried a patriotic military theme in the design and name of the subsets and inserts. That theme came back in 2014 in the form of the American Thunder product. That can lead to some pretty cool cards and some that are a little bit silly. Last year I opened a box of the 2011 set and found that while Press Pass featured real Air Force ribbons on the front of the Joey Logano memorabilia card I pulled, the ribbons were out of order when compared with how they would actually be worn. It's kind of like watching an action or war movie and getting hung up on the specifics of uniforms and weapon functions that they get wrong.

The Medal of Honor is such a huge deal in the military, with many of them awarded posthumously, that I feel a little weird about calling an insert card set featuring NASCAR drivers something very similar. Especially since it appears that the back of the card might feature a civilian awarding a medal to a soldier, something that again would be pretty rare unless it were the President of the United States awarding a Medal of Honor to a service-member.

In the end I think you have to realize that civilians are trying to honor the military, and the little details they miss out on or get wrong are not an attempt to dishonor veterans. This is a pretty cool card with a limited print run that features a nice memorabilia swatch presented in a creative way, photos of both car and driver, and a few little patriotic touches that are pretty cool.

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About Me

The intention of my blogs is to focus on my hobbies, but they often wind up covering other things instead. My dormant blog, The Raz File, is centered on miniature wargames and painting. My other blog, The Raz Card Blog, is about trading cards and collectibles.